Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Reckless Sacrifices

For a moment in time, barely conceivable and comprehensible to the mind of a normal human, Mana's instincts froze her body, right before the other miners charged at her and her squad. For a single moment, just a raindrop in a raging ocean storm of moments to come, the magician tried to think, analyse the environment like she used to. Brawl in autopilot, surrender her body to pure instinct, let her chakra and her ninja perception guide her actions while her mind was busy analysing the environment, predicting the opponent's movements. Oh how forgetful it was of her to do that...

Mana's body moved slick and fast, avoiding every blow, every swing of each weapon, built or improvised. She avoided fists, steel gloves meant to rip loosened minerals from stone with tremendous force, pickaxes, axes and even tossed chunks of stone and coal. Just like Meiko taught her, all of her movements were fluid like water, she was ready to fight just about anyone or anything who wasn't faster than human perception. Her movements were sharpened perfected, not only during the week of training but also all those years of being trained to be a soldier for her own village. While her full power was crushed beneath the feet of cruel fate, her mind was still the same... Mostly: slower, incredibly sluggish but at least just as potent.

Mana felt regret, doubt, she didn't want to fight initially because she didn't know if these men were just miners doing their job or tools of the Syndicate to be thrown at them. The first man was different, she knocked him out because she wasn't ready, she reacted in self-defense, she restrained her movements from snapping his neck despite having full access to it. Then something snapped in her mind. She was protecting her opponent again, just like before... No more of that.

The kunoichi's hands and feet joined in on her smooth evasion, her arms redirected every blow, every weapon choosing a new target for the attack for the enemy, using their momentum and their own strength. And there was plenty of it to spare, these blows were strong enough to shatter bones, crush skulls, maim and even kill. A pickaxe meant to be stuck into Mana's eye, sent right into the knee of the miner's friend to the right, a kick meant to kick the girl in the shin, it'd have sent her to her knees where she'd soon be overwhelmed had the man's kick not been pushed into the groin of his friend. Despite her best efforts to stand there and fight, Mana had to move backward, she had to avoid getting surrounded or else...

A sharp scratch composed of nothing else but sheer pain emanated from the girl's back, sending painful shivers to her very core. She was tagged, her defense was slowing down, it was natural, she was only human. A punch to the gut hit her but Mana bounced back, adrenaline and fear kept her on her feet. She kept fighting back, trying to find weak but not overly weak spots to redirect the punches to. It wasn't going ideally, she had more miners to deal with than she was comfortable dealing with. As much as she didn't want to admit it – she needed some help here... Fights were never pretty but if she was left alone Mana may need some more healing after this.

Meiko, on the other hand, was blowing everyone away. She unsealed the buckler from the sealing mark on her arm, shoving it into people's faces, dashing around like a moving wall and blowing everyone off their feet, several times her swift and blurry movements saved Mana by cleaning her opponents right in front of her own eyes. The blacksmith leaned down and pressed a mark on her boots.

"C-Rank Seal: Release!" she yelled out as blue flames of pure chakra shot out from the seal in her boots. Had the blacksmith not spent so much time on maintenance of her armor and its seals she'd have completely forgotten to refill the chakra supply in the seal. A jet of flames sent the armored ninja on a rampage through the battlefield wielding her buckler as a battering ram, judging from the looks and the tremendous success she had blowing miners away it was more of a crushing ram.

"Look, Mana! I'm like Kurye from "Tales of Shikio"! The Mighty Valkyrie of the Shield!" Meiko yelled out, to her this was just a foolish game, just something where she could goof off and show her tremendous combat potential off, test out some new combinations of her weapons. Mana, on the other hand, was fighting for her life... Well, that as well as her pride. She couldn't allow herself being beaten here, even when outnumbered a dozen of times...